Going Beyond the 30 Second Ad is Not Only Desirable, it’s Now Essential

April 17, 2013

How a Content First approach to brand communications is creating more engagement

By Antony Young, CEO Mindshare North America

The 30 second ad has served us well as the staple for awareness building and driving brand familiarity.  However, the speed at which media is being viewed across multiple devices; the increasing scale and influence of social platforms; and how consumers now more than ever are dictating where, when and what media they choose to consumer is causing us to re-think how brands need to engage them.

That’s why I think that one of the most important ideas that agencies will have to adopt is a Content First approach to media.  If our role is to figure out how best to influence consumers, then we have to take a more strategic perspective on where to deliver ads as well as what type of content and content formats are best placed to meet brand communication goals.

Using Longer Form Content To Drive Reappraisal

royal carribbeanWhen Royal Caribbean looked to get first time cruisers to book, this presented them some real challenges.  A 30-second spot alone would not be enough to overcome all the misconceptions about cruises with which the brand needed to content.  Long form story telling was necessary to draw the consumer into the true onboard experience and shift consideration and reshape perceptions.  So Royal Caribbean agreed to develop two short films shot on their flagship “Allure of the Seas: ship featuring Jenny McCarthy and James Brolin.  The storyline incorporated their amenities onboard and gave viewers a more entertaining and organic view of the onboard experience.

 Shorter Form Commercials Are Increasingly becoming As Important

With 1 in 3 digital minutes now spent on a mobile device, when advertising a brand there’s a fine line between annoyance and acceptance that needs to be managed.    During College Basketball’s March Madness, the NCAA pushed out via Twitter live video game highlights of plays as they took place.  Followers could click on to the tweeted link that ran 5 second AT&T spots before the content.  A thirty or fifteen second spot would have certainly been a turn-off, but a short 5 second spot close up, seemed an acceptable trade for real time content in providing a positive consumer experience for basketball fans.   A Content First strategy ensures the consumer experience decides the messaging formats.

Content is About Really Putting the Consumer First

In truth, while we in the ad industry talk about putting consumers first, the reality is that creating ads is really about putting the brand at the center.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Content, however, plays a different role, in that rather than being focused on brand wants, it is targeted to consumer needs…for information, entertainment, expertise, etc.

HSBC’s Commercial  Banking group wanted to attract small to mid-size companies seeking to expand their business internationally.  Business without Borders – an online platform was created for businesses looking to expand outside of the U.S.

With HSBC we worked with the The Wall Street Journal, Economist Intelligence Unit and Bloomberg to curate business tools, global trends articles, and market analysis and complemented it with relevant financial information and resources.  LinkedIn provided an additional platform to connect this content to the right people, and activate a community of business professionals.

Business without Borders has become a meeting place where members develop relationships and share their experiences as part of the global economy.

In this case, thinking Content First helped to create utility, offer expert advice and help business professionals, exactly the brand proposition that HSBC are looking to establish.  That would have been difficult to achieve with traditional advertising.

Technology is fueling numerous new content opportunities

Some evolving technologies are helping us to create more powerful and relevant advertising opportunities.  When SAP tweeted links to New York Times content they felt was relevant to their CXO followers , SAP through a technology called Ricochet was able to own all the display ad positions around these articles on the NY Times web page.  This not only provided branding of valuable content to their customer, but click through rates that tracked 14 times higher than their response norms.

 makersBranded Content Needs to be Both Social and Shareable

One of the important pay outs in a Content First strategy is driving earned media.  It’s a universal truth that consumers are going to be more likely to share content than ads.  I really loved how Unilever teamed up with AOL and MAKERS Founder and Executive Producer Dyllan McGee to develop its Makers.com program for facial skincare brand Simple.  Simple’s goal was to celebrate women whose authenticity, ideals and pioneering spirit inspire others every day.  AOL helped develop a video platform to produce and share some 160 amazing stories of empowering and inspirational women that helped to make America … from Hillary Clinton to Hope Solo and Ellen DeGeneres.  The content program, TV special on PBS and surrounding events for the program drove advocacy amongst opinion formers, delivered this at scale generating over 200 million earned impressions via editorial, social mentions and raging endorsements from top beauty magazine editors to influential bloggers.

Data is Creating Adaptive Content Marketing Opportunities

We are seeing examples of how marketers are adapting their messaging by combining data and creativity.  Take what The Home Depot is doing with The Weather Channel.  Tapping the Home Depot banner on the Weather Channel’s mobile app sends you to their mobile ecommerce site, which dynamically showcases products extracting weather conditions and location data of the user.  Very cool.

Today’s crowded market creates more obstacles than ever before for advertisers, making it an increasingly difficult task to stand out and be heard.  The answer doesn’t start in the boardroom with a handful of executives creating an ad that is then pushed out.  It starts in the world, with a single consumer looking for information and entertainment, and a brand that is listening.

[An edited version appeared in Adage.com http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/30-ad-a/240857/]

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Big Data Promotes a Culture of Data-Informed Decision Making and Adaptive Marketing – Antony Young-Mindshare

March 14, 2013 1 Comment

data

By Antony Young

Big Data is quickly being catapulted to the top of Marketing’s agenda, but it remains a challenge for many companies in preparing for this shift. According to a survey conducted by IBM, less than half of CMO’s feel prepared to cope with this increasing amount of marketing data over the next 5 years, with the data explosion cited as their #1 headache. The problem isn’t obtaining data, it’s figuring out how to turn it into marketing magic. I’m seeing a growing list of exceptional cases of marketer’s shifting their organizations to adopt a higher level of data-informed decision making, often with astonishing results.

It’s not so much big data, but smart data used at scale

Last week, I had dinner with Joe Rospars, founding partner at Blue State Digital, who served as Obama’s Chief Digital Strategist for his 2008 and 2012 campaigns, and asked him about big data. He responded, their approach “wasn’t so much big data, but smart data used at scale.” To win this election, they needed to get very granular in their targeting. By extracting voter files and collecting information via the tens of thousands of polling calls made to homes every night, they were able to identify by household individual voter likelihood, and then determine the communications they needed to deliver.

The Obama campaign expertly targeted via online advertising, email, door to door and phone canvassing very personalized messaging. They cleverly extended this strategy via social media. Nearly a million supporters that ‘liked’ the Obama 2012 page also allowed access to their profile data via Facebook Connect. This enabled Obama’s people to identify their Facebook friends in battleground States, cross tabulate with their own databases, which they then asked supporters to email or even personally call their friends that fit likely Obama voter profiles, to remind them to register or vote early.

Data is the engine for Adaptive Marketing

Data is allowing brands to move quicker and more decisively to gain a market advantage by dynamically informing their messaging and media.

Samsung a big investor in data, worked with insights firm Networked Insights, to use real-time social listening to help them keep a finger on the pulse of consumer sentiment and adjust their communications to capitalize on the web discussion about brands.

Within a couple of hours of Apple’s Tim Cook revealing their iPhone 5, Samsung reading the reaction in social channels, drafted new print, digital, and TV ads. The following week as the iPhone hit the stores, they aired TV ads mocking Apple customers queuing up for the new phone and some of its less flattering features. The commercial was a hit, and received more than 70 million views online.

They also used social listening as a real time guide to evaluate how effective their ads were with consumers by measuring what people are saying about them and what effect they’ve having on competitors’ brands. Stressing the importance of data in informing their marketing, Brian Wallace, the former VP of Marketing at Samsung, (who recently moved to Motorola to a global marketing role) said, “The data guys lead these conversations. Not the creative guys. Not the sale guys. And it’s not just analytics — it’s analysis.” He added, “[data] does not crush the art of advertising. It simply informs it — and ultimately improves it.” Samsung’s shift to a strategy of employing social data at the center was one of the key factors that assisted them to move from the number 4 mobile device manufacturer to pass the mighty Apple.

Creating a more personalized customer experience

I’m seeing a focus on data enabling marketers to create smarter, more engaged customer experiences.

I recently chaired a panel which included Sandra Zoratti, co-author of the book Precision Marketing. She cited Caesar’s Entertainment as a marketer that centralized data to better formulate its approach to marketing. They identified 0.15% of their customers that contributed to 12% of their casino revenues. This led to them employing Good Luck Ambassadors to monitor these customers. If they weren’t having a good night on the tables, they offered complimentary tickets to a show or dinner based on their known preferences to ensure they left their casinos with a positive experience.

Building a fluid organization that can capitalize on the data

Shifting to a fast moving data marketing organization isn’t just about software and strategy. It requires a shift in how the agency and clients teams work.

The Obama campaign quadrupled their data team from the previous election campaign, adding data technologists, behavioral scientists and mathematicians to crunch the data and help interpret them into actionable marketing insights.

According to Rospars, to improve speed of activation, they established a persona playbook on how the brand should speak, to allow them to delegate decision making down.

Personally, I love this shift to data-informed decision making. It is creating more adaptive, more relevant and more commercial marketing programs. We are barely scratching the surface, but it’s clear that going forward, data will be an enabler of more potent marketing.

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Leveraging Data to Embrace the Customer Experience

January 30, 2013

OMMA’s Data Driven Marketing panel I chaired last week: “Leveraging Data to Embrace The Customer Experience http://ow.ly/hem0e 

OMMA DDM

The One True View: Leveraging Data to Embrace The Customer Experience
It is not about the channel experience anymore. Big data makes possible a holistic view of a consumer “journey,” that is bigger and more personal than simply being online, in-store, on mobile, or watching TV. That 360-degree or “one true view” of that customer can inform how messaging is crafted and timed according to the user’s path, not the platform. It demands a new understanding of a consumer “lifecycle” and data that drives marketers towards the right touch points. Our panel of marketing practitioners shares examples of how data is best being used to understand and enhance the customer experience and the challenges of creating that “one true view.”
MODERATOR
Antony Young, CEO, Mindshare, N.A. @AntonyYoung
PANELISTS
Shaina Boone, VP, Marketing Science, Critical Mass
Greg Corso, VP, Media Solutions, dunnhumby @gjcorso
Pete Stein, President, Eastern Region, Razorfish @pstein211
Randy Watson, VP of Consulting, Digital Impact & Innovation, Acxiom
Sandra Zoratti, VP of Marketing, Executive Briefings and Education, Ricoh @sandraz
See the video of the panel by clicking this link.

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How Data and Micro-Targeting Won the 2012 Election for Obama

November 26, 2012

If Obama’s Presidential campaign in 2008 was defined by social media, then surely his successful 2012 re-election bid should be attributed to their use of data and micro-targeting.

Election night seemed to confound many of the pundits. Governor Romney appeared to put together a strong campaign with the polls leading into the final week suggesting a tight race. Romney won 60% of White voters. He in fact even won the independents vote. Yet he lost the key battleground States of Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada … handing the sitting President a second term.

How did Obama win?

First, he delivered a well-orchestrated campaign of largely negative advertising targeting Romney, which served the purpose of suppressing voter turnout by traditionally Republican supporters.

Second, he mobilized key voter blocks to register early and vote. 18-24 year olds; African Americans; Latinos and single women in the key swing States. Voter turnout for these four key demographics was about 70% thereby giving him the numbers he needed to push him over the edge.

At the heart of these two strategies, was micro-targeting.

Micro-targeting is the ability to dissect in this case, the voter population in to narrow segments and customize messaging to them, both in on-the-ground activities and in the media.

Micro-targeting isn’t a new idea in politics or marketing for that matter. Karl Rove expertly exploited this in the successful Bush campaign in 2000 and 2004. But it was the sophistication and the scale of how they executed this strategy that in the end, proved the knock-out punch for the Democrats.

The Obama camp in preparing for this election, established a huge Analytics group that comprised of behavioral scientists, data technologists and mathematicians. They worked tirelessly to gather and interpret data to inform every part of the campaign. They built up a voter file that included voter history, demographic profiles, but also collected numerous other data points around interests … for example, did they give to charitable organizations or which magazines did they read to help them better understand who they were and better identify the group of‘persuadables‘ to target.

That data was able to be drilled down to zip codes, individual households and in many cases individuals within those households.

However it is how they deployed this data in activating their campaign that translated the insight they garnered into killer tactics for the Obama campaign.

Volunteers canvassing door to door or calling constituents were able to access these profiles via an app accessed on an iPad, iPhone or Android mobile device to provide an instant transcript to help them steer their conversations. They were also able to input new data from their conversation back into the database real time.

The profiles informed their direct and email fundraising efforts. They used issues such Obama’s support for gay marriage or Romney’s missteps in his portrayal of women to directly target more liberal and professional women on their database, with messages that “Obama is for women,” using that opportunity to solicit contributions to his campaign.

Micro-targeting helped them to steer their broadcast buying approach. While both campaigns followed conventional wisdom to buy spots in Local Broadcast news programming, Obama’s team differentiated their schedule by adding networks like TV Land whose viewers they determined “were less political” and therefore more likely to be a persuadable.

Even the selection of celebrity fundraisers were informed by the data. The team identified women 40-49 as the highest contributors to their campaign. Obama’s analytics team in crunching the numbers uncovered that Sara Jessica Parker of Sex in the City fame popped as the most appealing celebrity to this demographic and called her up to ask if she would host a fundraiser dinner for Obama in New York. Web ads and emails from Michelle Obama were sent targeting this group asking them to “chip in whatever they can” with a chance to win an invitation, hotel and flights to New York to attend the event.

As mentioned earlier, encouraging early voting and a higher turnout of key target groups was critical in winning the swing states. They used classic micro-targeting online advertising to reach those groups. Obama’s team’s use of Facebook this time was also very clever, tapping into Facebook’s individual profile data. A million users downloaded the Obama 2012 app on Facebook. The app was able to identify their Facebook friends that fit favorable profiles located in key swing states, encouraging them to contact these friends to remind them to vote. Sources say one in five of those contacted this way were influenced positively by this contact.

Marketers need to take heed of how the Obama campaign transformed their marketing approach centered around data. They demonstrated incredible discipline to capture data across multiple sources and then to inform every element of the marketing – direct to consumer, on the ground efforts, unpaid and paid media. Their ability to dissect potential prospects into narrow segments or even at an individual level and develop specific relevant messaging created highly persuasive communications. And finally their approach to tap their committed fans was hugely powerful. The Obama campaign provides a compelling case for companies to build their marketing expertise around big data and micro-targeting. How ready is your organization to do the same?

 

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What Marketers Can Learn From the 2012 Presidential Campaigns

November 9, 2012

Target, Adapt and Respond — and Don’t Forget Your Ground Game

Mr. Obama’s skillful deployment of social media in 2008 caused marketers to sit up and take notice. So what can brands learn from this year’s massive, sophisticated presidential campaigns?
Barack Obama after his acceptance speech in Chicago
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News

 

Focus on your swing voters
Both the Romney and Obama campaigns spent the bulk of their media dollars in the battleground states including Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada (sometimes to the despair of the states’ overwhelmed residents). And they trained much of their fire on the undecideds. That applied even to the individual TV shows they bought. Both campaigns largely avoided placements during cable news shows, for example, whose audiences were more likely to have already decided who they were voting for. Local news broadcasts, on the other hand, indexed highest for independents who were more likely to turn out on Election Day, according to Scarborough.Who are your swing voters? The real value of mass media, and where the economics really make sense, is in drawing new consumers into your brand.

Remember your ground game
The Obama campaign said it made 125 million voter contacts, more than twice the total reported by Republicans, with more field offices in key areas than the Romney campaign and more personal outreach. Marketers would do well to remember that activation, promotion and personal touches go a long way in locking in the benefits of media spending.

Video still works
While 2008 was considered by many “the Facebook Election,” TV — or, more precisely, video — reasserted its strategic importance in 2012. Mr. Obama had a challenging platform to sell given the performance of the economy, but he did in most cases outspend Romney in TV, in many cases 2 to 1. We also saw a heavy shift of dollars into online video. Hulu revealed that election spending on the online video site was up 700% from the last election.

Hyper-local is the new black
Part of the appeal of online video is the ability to hyper-target, that is, the ability to pinpoint media and commercial messaging within a narrow catchment area. In Blacksburg, Va., for example, there are 30,000 students residing at Virginia Tech. The Obama campaign’s Hulu buys targeted the schools’ zip code with “Gotta Vote” spots to encourage students to register and turn out.

Broadcast advertising, too, was tailored to local issues. In Ohio, Mr. Obama’s campaign targeted blue-collar women by promoting its track record on jobs, whereas in Florida, the Romney campaign sought Cuban-American voters with hard-hitting TV commercials claiming Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez supported Mr. Obama’s policies. We saw local radio play a role, too, in this localization.

Are we as marketers really taking opportunity of localizing our media and messaging? Despite a lot of talk about targeting, many marketers still emphasize efficiency in spending over relevance to different customer segments and markets.

Adaptive marketing is rising
I’ve written previously about adaptive marketing, but both candidates just demonstrated its value again as they reacted to voter polls and feedback in nearly real time. And although all marketers listen to consumer responses, it was the speed and consistency with which both the Romney and Obama campaigns were able to respond that impressed me.

On multiple occasions we saw Mr. Romney test a message or storyline in a campaign rally speech. If it got a reaction from the audience, video spots would quickly follow online. If there was strong response online or pickup by cable news networks, the ads would appear on broadcast TV … all within a matter of days, often adjusting further as the campaign progressed.

Adaptive marketing doesn’t always require massive spending and machinery, either. Both candidates also expertly tapped into their advocates to push out tweets during the debates to reinforce key punctuation points to the base or counter comments by their opponent.

Long-form content can persuade 
A good showing in the first debate jolted Mr. Romney out of the doldrums and into contention. While he didn’t win in the end, he closed the gap sharply. Brands, for their part, don’t have to win an election; all they need to do is improve market share. What can be learnt from this? First, all brands have the opportunity to re-invent — or at least drive re-consideration — and it can happen quickly if done well. Second, long-form branded video content is a medium that is underused. Sure, the mass reach of a presidential debate and the subsequent news coverage isn’t available to brands. But deeper content outside of ad units can change opinions.

Negative ads are a negative
Negative advertising was a feature of both candidates’ campaigns, subjecting each candidate’s brand to a beating. According to the Wesleyan Media Project, negative ads between June and October accounted for 62.9% of spots, compared to 39.7% in 2008. I suspect that turned off voters and contributed to the apparent decline in voter turnout from 2008. I hope we don’t see this as a trend for brands in 2013.

Presidential elections are not just a boost to the coffers of the media companies, but serve as a benchmark for brands. For me, the next election can’t come soon enough.

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Media Companies Are Betting on Hyperlocal, But Will Brands Follow?

August 17, 2012 3 Comments

Google, Nike Making Plays But Most Marketers Will Need Better Payout to Shift National Dollars to Regional

By:  Published in AdAge: August 14, 2012

It’s rare these days to hear a positive story about the newspaper industry, but I recently learned of the Pembroke and Pembroke Docks Observer, a newspaper in South Wales that decided to bet its future on a hyperlocal strategy. It focused almost entirely on covering local news, local people and local events while soliciting community-generated content — a package not provided by the larger county or national titles. It was rewarded with a doubling of its circulation.

Its owners say their success comes down to remaining local, personal and relevant to their community. That idea has a lot of merit for national brands in the U.S.

We are programmed to play nationally. The national 30-second spot in an “American Idol” or an NFL game is king. While there is clearly an efficiency and value in maintaining a national presence, however, it’s become even more important to engage consumers in order to truly grow brands — or disrupt your competitors. It’s also becoming harder to do. Being relevant locally, as the Pembroke and Pembroke Docks Observer discovered, can be a powerful recipe for growing market share.

“There’s no such thing as a national customer,” a client once said to me. “Just lots of local ones.” And it takes insight into local tastes, local demographics, local issues and local competitors to be relevant and win the consumer. Organize national, act local is starting to get some traction. But the media are leading the way.

Media properties’ local targeting is increasingly offering more precision. Hyperlocal websites are providing local content and localized national advertising platforms by individual towns.

Google recently announced last month the ability to buy search by ZIP code, and again bet on local yesterday when it said it had agreed to buy Frommer’s, including 350 travel guides and a website covering more than 3,500 locations.

Addressable TV is beginning to scale. By end of year, we will be able to target by individual household in 22 million homes. And the large national radio groups have become highly effective on-the-ground local marketing partners on-air, off-air and online.

The question is whether major national and international marketers will invest the time and money to take advantage.

Some sophisticated marketers are moving in that direction. Walmart has introduced a Facebook app customizing marketing for each of its nearly 3,600 U.S. locations, including a dynamic social billboard that serves as an electronic circular with details of sales, special product deals and recipe suggestions. This is a smart local program to move the huge national chain closer to its community.

Nike has been creating city-specific epicenters to spark buzz and credibility for its brand. Its global online reality web competition series “The Chosen” was fueled by local grassroots skating and surfing events. In the U.K., Nike held a 15-day challenge for runners across 48 different post codes in London, using some nifty technology to measure and rank their performance.

The increasing ubiquity, not to mention portability, of mobile media will almost guarantee that all marketers will need a mobile media strategy. And central to that strategy is the ability to embrace location-based messaging and promotion.

National brands are experimenting there. L’Oreal promoted its Vichy line using timeRAZOR, a mobile app to promote and schedule one-on-one beauty consultations at Duane Reade locations in New York, an effort that led to a 150% increase in sales for that promotion.

Search is clearly another major opportunity, with the BIA/Kelsey Group that local searches on mobile phones will exceed local searches on desktop computers by 2015. Perhaps the iPhone’s Siri, which uses Yelp’s reviews, will start to offer brand recommendations in the not-too-distant future.

But ultimately most marketers will need a better payout to shift national dollars to local, posing a riddle for the media companies betting so much of their own money on a local strategy. Data will have to be the compass for media sellers and buyers alike. Mobile ad network xAd recently published data showing that locally-targeted mobile display ads deliver 5% to 8% click-through rates, compared to 0.6% for typical mobile display ads.

There’s no doubt that local will be an increasing play for national marketers. It’s what brands need to do to engage consumers and grow. However, it is going to be more challenging for marketers to execute and more costly and complex to orchestrate. But the possibilities are exciting.

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Why Creative Agencies Rule Media… at Least at Cannes

July 2, 2012

Why Media Agencies Don’t Win More Media Lions, and How They Can Do Better

By:  Appeared in Ad Age: June 26, 2012

The results are out for the Cannes Media Lions and appear to be a blow for the established media agency networks. Congratulations go to Manning GotliebOMD in London for winning the Grand Prix, to be sure, but fellow media shops didn’t fare so well when it came to picking up the silverware.

From more than 100 media trophies handed out last week in the Grand Audi of the Palais des Festivals, a paltry 22 went to media planning and buying agencies. An overwhelming 80% of the awards were picked up largely by creative agencies, with a smattering of digital or content specialists. Now, I’m not about to dis the festival. I admit I would have liked our agency to have done better. But what does it say if the agencies entrusted with media budgets of billions of dollars aren’t winning these awards?

Creative agencies are just more focused on trophies. Let’s face it: Creative agencies want to win awards more badly.

The reputations and careers of creatives are made at Cannes, with job offers often following success at the festival. A communications planner or media buyer primarily gets kudos from the agency and the satisfaction of a job well done. Rarely does winning a media award have a monetary impact to their monthly pay that correlates with the impact for creative professionals.

Perhaps it’s more clear that a media award is the result of many hands in the agency touching the campaign … planners, print buyers, broadcast negotiators, out-of-home staff, digital/social teams, the insights group, media partners and, of course, creative agencies. There’s a lot of credit that gets shared across the agency and beyond, so it’s hard for two to three individuals to truly claim it. We’re a little more altruistic at the media agencies.

Creative agencies are also much better storytellers — which comes in handy when they’re telling their own story in awards applications. Last year, I judged an awards show where the media jury was completely seduced by the case video and written submission for the Microsoft Bing/JayZ out-of-home campaign. Even though the campaign ran in New York City, none of the New Yorkers on the final panel could recall ever seeing it. No matter. And no excuses: If the media agencies want to win at Cannes, then we just have to want it more — certainly more than we want it now.

Cannes is still about ‘creative’ media awards. While media agencies see their principle role as media-investment advisers and distributors of messaging, Cannes is still really about how creative and inventive a marketer and their agencies can be. Take the Gold Lions awarded in media this year. Six of the clients were nonprofits or causes. That suggests that not only have big media budgets become irrelevant to winning, they are threatening to become a hindrance.

With the exception of Mediacom’s delightful campaign for Canon, I doubt if the total combined paid media budget for the other Gold campaigns was more than $300,000.

I wouldn’t want to take anything away from the terrific winning submissions. They were all worthy winners. But I would say the media award shows are in danger of become media’s equivalent of an haute couture fashion show, rather than ready to wear. Then again, no one is going to want to see a best use of data award!

The definition of “media” continues to broaden. Any campaign that smacked of conventional or heavily traditional media wasn’t even shortlisted — and rightly so. This year, new media ranged from an Antwerp movie theater full of bikers for Carlsberg to floating foam crosses promoting World Aids Day to a couple of polar bears watching the Super Bowl for Coca-Cola. Whatever the media idea or platform, YouTube, Facebook, Google and Twitter featured in almost every one of the best campaigns. Note to planners: if the campaign you’re planning isn’t social by design, then don’t bother entering next year.

The winning campaigns were, on the whole, quite inspirational. And if this is how the judges see the best that media has to offer, then fair game, that’s the bar we all need to aspire to. It’s incumbent on everyone working in media, whichever agency you work for, to come back next year with more groundbreaking media innovation.

Click here to view the winning 2012 Media Lion award submissions.

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MediaPost: Mindshare’s Young Is Focused On Data, Clients, Choices

June 26, 2012

by , appeared in MediaPost Monday 25 June 2012

YoungBig data, big clients — and someday soon, big mobile. Those are just a few of the items high on the priority list of Antony Young, who joined Mindshare as North American CEO nearly nine months ago.

Young also says the agency needs to do more work in the area of “discovery-based” communications, such as search and social. With a new platform emerging almost daily, he said, clients are hungry for advice on how to use them to best advantage.

“It’s really about choices,” said Young. Because most clients don’t have a need for — nor can they afford to use — all the media channels that are available, media selection is key, and meshing it all together in the most efficient way for individual clients is critical, he adds.

One of the “big bets” that Mindshare is making is that data management technology will help clients find answers quickly about consumer needs, behavior and the kinds of relationships they want to have with marketers. Ultimately, having that knowledge should boost client profits, which is what agencies are being increasingly called upon to do, Young said.

Just last week, Mindshare launched a new tech platform that it believes will advance clients’ ability to aggregate and massage massive amounts of data in ways that will sharply improve strategic planning and integrated communication capabilities.

Called Core, the platform was created with the help of a number of outside data and market research firms, including Acxiom and Nielsen. It’s an open-source, “always on” system that crunches media, pricing, consumer and client data including sales, supply chain and CRM stats.

According to Young, that platform and other data-related capability enhancements the shop is undertaking  are “probably the most important piece of the puzzle for clients.” It contains all of the information required to finding links to improved results. “That’s huge,” he said. “That syncing up and marrying of media, consumer and business data can unlock a lot of business value for clients.”

Agency-client relationships are another key focus at the agency, said Young, who notes that in the time he has been at Mindshare, the CMOs or top-ranking marketing executives at 16 clients have changed. Keeping up with the new strategies and agendas of the shifting players is crucial.

Young made several reorganizational moves recently to ensure that the agency is keenly focused on clients and potential new business.

In May, Lee Doyle, a GroupM veteran and former CEO at sibling agency MEC, was appointed president of client development at Mindshare, a new position at the agency. Doyle will focus on multinational clients and seeing that the agency has the right resources and strategies in place at client teams. Doyle’s appointment, said Young, is a signal that “we really want to be engaged with clients at a more senior level and earlier in the planning stages.”

Staying “constantly fluid is a really important part of that,” added Young. “Especially when you look at the [management] changes at clients and shifting priorities as their own businesses change.”

In a related bid to stengthen client ties, the shop promoted Michael Epstein to president, strategic resources and client services. He is responsible for the management of new business, corporate communications, digital, multicultural and promotions. Epstein previously served as the lead on a number of key client accounts, including Unilever.

The potential of mobile is no longer a subject of debate, says Young. He believes society is headed toward a “mobile-dominated media world,” where tablets will almost supplant PCs. While he says agencies and clients alike probably aren’t moving fast enough to prepare for that eventuality, the agency made a move last week, forming a joint venture with Google, called “Mobile Garage.” It’s designed to educate companies about mobile technology and expedite their use of the medium in their marketing plans.

“Everyone is trying to catch up,” in the mobile sector, said Young, noting that 15% of Amazon.com transactions are now done via mobile, as are 20% of Google searches. “To me, that’s a pretty sharp signal that marketers and agencies are behind the eight ball and we need to get ahead of it.”

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/177554/mindshares-young-is-focused-on-data-clients-cho.html#ixzz1ytVSYqUW

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Let’s Not Write-Off Facebook Just Yet

June 2, 2012

By Antony Young, CEO Mindshare North America

They say that a week is a long time in our business, and surely the folks at Facebook would agree.

The overwhelming media darling for the past few years saw its IPO become a catalyst for the press, and every other news channels to turn on the social media network.  I guess the largest IPO in history was either going to go one of two ways with them.  As a journalist once told me, to the news media, a plane that crashes is a much better story than one that takes off!

Mark Zuckerberg strikes me as being quite different than most other digital entrepreneurs.  He never particularly chased the limelight.  In fact the notoriously media-shy executive was relentless sort out by the media.  He never seemed in a hurry to sell to advertisers.  Until recently we mostly pursued him.  And it would seem that the necessity to go public came more from the desire by the money men and the large number of employees looking to realize value for their stock.

So what does a disappointing IPO and disgruntled investors mean for Facebook and the advertising and media community?

Nothing.  Facebook is no different this month than it was last month.

It is a powerful, ubiquitous venue for social interaction by consumers … about half a billion exchanging or viewing content every day.

It remains an interesting platform for brands.  I’m not sure if we have yet figured out its full potential just yet or indeed how to monetize or measure it satisfactorily.

It has become a venue for advertising with some rich and fairly unique insight into their users profile, interests and behavior.

A flawed IPO and fledging stock price doesn’t really change that.

Those of us that recall the great dot com stumble in 2000 will remember that while catastrophic for many investors really didn’t impact the underlining development and growth in the Internet as a channel and a marketing medium.

But here’s what I fear…

The overwhelming attention by Wall Street and now its public shareholders to its quarterly earnings, cause their management to lose its focus.   The ad community isn’t going to spend more just because they need to hit their numbers.  Continue to work with us to find the models, listen and by all means sell.  The dollars will come because it makes sense to marketers when it delivers an ROI that we can justify on our timetable.  Stay the course.  I worry that expectations at this point seem unsubstantially high and that they could quickly lose patience and prompt them into making rash decisions.

Here’s what I hope for from them …

They use the cash well.  Acquiring new companies, new technologies; and entering new venues is going to be what is going to define Facebook Inc. in the future.

When one looks at its peer companies … Google, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo! Their stock valuation and performance as media companies has been defined as much by their new businesses as their core business model.

Google for example, bought the companies or technologies behind YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome, Adsense, Android, Google Books, Google TV, Google+ and Google Wallet.  They are now much more than a search engine/Adwords business.

I don’t plan to invest in Facebook stock anytime soon.  But what is more important to Facebook is if they can get me and the rest of the marketer community investing in their products.

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Google Products You May or May Not of Heard of …

April 16, 2012

Google is constantly developing new ideas and then seeing if they stick.  This is a great list compiled by Adam Vincenzini of Paratus Communications.
  1. Google Takeout – No, this is not Google’s food delivery service (although that’d be handy), this is a tool which allows you to download an archive of your data from things like your +1′s, Google+ Circles, Contacts and Picasa Web albums.
  2. Google Mars – While you’re probably familiar with Google Earth, Google Mars is a little less well known. However, what it lacks in notoriety it makes up for in in geeky coolness. It gives you the ability to check out spacecraft landing locations, crater depth and even comes with an infrared option.
  3. Google Health – This is one of the (many) products Google launched that didn’t quite capture the imagination of the public as anticipated. It was designed to be a portal for all of your health and wellness information. This service officially shuts down on January 1, 2013.
  4. Google SketchUp – Now, this definitely falls into the ‘incredibly useful’ category of Google products. Google SketchUp allows you to create anything in 3D from coffee pots to skyscrapers. Check out the community gallery for added inspiration.
  5. Google Correlate – If you’ve been watching the new TV show starring Kiefer Sutherland called Touch you’ll appreciate this one as it allows you to find patterns within data samples. Oooh yeah, go get your geek on!
  6. Google Sites – It’s surprising Google hasn’t done more with this in light of the self-publishing explosion of the last few years. If and when you do need a spot online to share content with a specific group, this is a decent option
  7. Google HotPot – With SO MANY food review and recommendation services in existence, this seems like an odd one to add to the Google bucket list. And although it sits pretty seamlessly on top of Google Places. But I don’t know anyone who uses it, do you?
  8. What Do You Love? (from Google) – You may have heard about this one when it was launched a little while back but if you haven’t, it is worth putting on your ‘to-do’ list. On the back of the ‘interest graph’ explosion, this aggregates content relating to specified topics from across the Google product network.
  9. YouTube Feather – A slight cheat here as we’re looking at a sub-product from the Google-owned YouTube product. While it was released in 2009, it’s still being trialed and this means you may not have come across it yet. In short, YouTube Feather is a ‘light’ version of YouTube that aims to take the strain away from your browser and internet connection.
  10. Panoramio – A photo sharing community that invites people to share their pictures of the world mashed up over the Google maps tool.

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